Integral evaporator and accumulator for air conditioning system

Abstract

An evaporator assembly includes a housing having a fluid inlet and a fluid outlet. A heat exchange core is in direct fluid communication with the fluid inlet for interchanging heat between refrigerant and air flow over the core. An accumulator chamber is contained within the housing and is in direct fluid communication between the heat exchange core and the fluid outlet for collecting and separating vaporized and unvaporized refrigerant directly from the heat exchange core and for providing an environment of vaporized refrigerant about said fluid outlet.

The embodiments of the invention in which an exclusive property or privilege is claimed are defined as follows: 
     
       1. An integral evaporator and accumulator assembly comprising: a housing including a fluid inlet and a fluid outlet; a heat exchange core in direct fluid communication with said fluid inlet for interchanging heat between refrigerant and a fluid passing over said core; and accumulator chamber within said housing in direct fluid communication with said fluid outlet and said heat exchange core for collecting vaporized and unvaporized refrigerant directly from said heat exchange core and for providing an environment of vaporized refrigerant about said fluid outlet, said housing including a stack of plates having a first opening at one end and second and third openings at a second end and corrugations extending traverse to and being in contact with the corrugations in an adjacent plate and its periphery joined to the periphery of said adjacent plate to form one series of said stacked flow chambers, said first openings being aligned to form a first header, said second openings being aligned to form a second header and said third openings being aligned to form said accumulator chamber, one of said plates having a first opening closed to define a first closing in said first header, one of said plates having said second opening closed to define a second closing in said second header, and several of said top plates including embossments extending between said second and third openings and between said first and second openings and said corrugations to define said passageways to and from said headers and flow chambers and said accumulator chamber, said lower plates including embosses extending from said first and second openings to said corrugations defining passageways for fluid flow in said lower stacked plates only between said headers and said flow chambers, said fluid outlet in the form of an upstanding outlet tube projecting upwardly from said bottom wall in said accumulator chamber, said outlet tube having an outlet opening at its upper end located adjacent a top wall of said housing in said accumulator chamber, baffle means mounted on said upper end of said outlet tube over said outlet opening for deflecting liquid refrigerant away from said outlet opening while permitting access thereto of vaporous refrigerant.